A peculiar
and casual paleontological finding performed by two neighbors in
the spa town of Miramar, It demonstrates the presence of this
curious marine predator from recently identified fossils. The fossils would be
close to 10 thousand years old.
The
white shark is a species rarely registered in the Argentine sea. Two neighbors
of the coastal town found fossil remains of it while gathering snails on the
beach that were identified in the paleontological record of the city of
Miramar, from two teeth deposited in the scientific collections of
the Natural Science Museum from the city located about 450
kilometers from Buenos Aires.
“Occasionally
displaced or rolled fossils appear on our coast, but these remains made a
difference. Separately in distance and time, they recovered teeth that
show An important fossilization process. The materials in
question were taken to the Miramar Municipal Museum, and were stored in a
drawer for a few years, ”he said. Daniel Boh, holder of the
local museum.
The
first tooth was found by Jose Puente on the beaches located in
the Dunicola Nursery Forest, and the second, was discovered by Miguel
Babarro and comes from the neighboring town of South Sea, distant
about 15 kilometers south of Miramar.
However,
several years passed, until Mariano Magnussen from the
Paleontological Laboratory of the new Miramarense museum, he noted the
importance of the finding while reviewing hundreds of fossils deposited in the
collections. Beside Federico Agnolin, Specialist of the
Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences, Conicet, Azara Foundation and Maimonides
University, made the first observations on them, and developed some
hypotheses about its origin, since in several sectors of the local
beaches fossil remains of whales, snails and hedgehogs that
would be linked to the environments where these prehistoric sharks lived.
Later, Sergio
Bogan of the Azara Foundation and Maimonides University, consulted the
fossil collection of this institution and observed these teeth, immediately
identifying them as those of a Carcharodon carcharias, popularly
known as white shark.
“Although
they present erosion, it is about two excellent fossil pieces, one
of them from the upper jaw and the other from the lower one, ”he said Bogan.
He added: “This is the first fossil remains of this species discovered in this
sector of the Buenos Aires coast. The white shark is currently extremely
unusual on our coasts and this finding reinforces the previously
proposed paleontological model, where the species was much
more abundant in the recent past of our sea ”.
When
asked, Magnussen he emphasized; “Miramar is one of the few
places in the world, where we have paleontological, archaeological and even
historical records of the presence of Carcharodon carcharias.”
All
fossils and deposits are protected by the Law 25.743 / 03 and
by municipal ordinance 248/88 where the provincial state (through the Registry
Center of Archaeological and Paleontological Heritage) has jurisdiction over
these fossil recovery issues. Fossils are everyone’s heritage, and are a matter
of fascination for museum visitors and a constant source of information to
learn about the past of our region.
